Pre-Richmond Thoughts

With the Xterra Richmond race coming up this weekend, I have some random thoughts:

-Wednesday night race cancelled AGAIN, I think we’ve had 4 race postponements out of 8 weeks.  I was disappointed that we didn’t have the race, because I was feeling good, but it probably was best for the Xterra Richmond race not to do a race middle of the week.

-I feel good about my swimming, mountain biking, and running, but it’s always a little weird when you are tapering for a race and you haven’t done a REALLY hard workout in almost two weeks, because you’re never 100% sure your fitness just hasn’t gone down the toilet in that time (which doesn’t happen, but you’re never quite sure).

-My biggest hope is that I get out of the swim in good position to start the bike and don’t run into too much trouble passing people on the bike.  Last year it wasn’t too bad to pass people on the bike, but it all depends on when you catch up to people and if you can get around them quickly.  Best case: I have an awesome swim and come out of the water without too many in front of me and I can just ride comfortably.  Worst case:  I come out of the water behind a bunch of slow mountain bikers that aren’t courteous about letting faster riders pass, in this case I just have to be smart and ride smooth save as much energy as possible when I’m stuck behind people.

-I still need to think through my nutrition/water for the bike (Camelbak, water bottle, both), I’m not worried about this I just need to think it through and make sure I’ll have enough water (I know how much Infinit I’ll need).

-It’s hard to know what reasonable expectations for this race are because last year I had a flat tire and had to run a couple miles of the bike, which hurt both my bike and run splits.  Also with mountain biking and trail running it’s hard to know what a good split is because it’s so dependent on the conditions and the course, not just the distance of the leg like on a road triathlon.  I’ve always been one that likes to plan and know how I should do so this is a little weird.

-Overall I’m a little nervous but very excited to see what I can do and how it goes.